Few Words
by sillybillyxo
Summary: Lexzie♡. Alex doesn't like to talk when words aren't necessary, he enjoys the silence. Izzie, however, can't bear it, especially not with Alex late one night while on call in the intern locker room. One of the many ways Lexzie could get back together.


It's Lexzie... woooo! Okay so I have about 80 other fics I should be writing, but wow do I miss Lexzie. And it seems I could write them getting back together a million ways a million different times, so here's just one of them. It's like... 4 months in the future? Six? I dunno... she's ready to move on from Denny, so use your imagination to when you feel that would be appropriate, okay?

This is just a really weird fic... its a weird style and a weird tense and really weird sentence structure... but hopefully you'll like it anyways? I'm sick and on a lot of drugs... and it just kind of happened, but I liked it. :)

Please leave some feedback, love you all ♥ sillybillyxo

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Few Words

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She watches him, resting causally on the cold metal bench, foot crossed lazily over his knee as his eyes scan the chart propped up against it, and she wonders just how Alex is capable of making something as mundane and boring as _paperwork_ seem so incredibly arousing. Then she realizes that it's probably due to the fact that he's Alex, and she's Izzie, so therefore, everything he does _is_ incredibly arousing.

That's the problem, she thinks. The fact that everything about him excites her, and when she looks at him she finds her gaze lingering just a little bit longer than it should. Yet even her inappropriate thoughts, and okay, her _mild_ obsession with him isn't even the source of the awkwardness that hangs so thickly in the air they share tonight. The culprit is the fact that they are the only two sitting in the intern locker room after a night of being on call, together.

And the room is unbearably silent.

For reasons which remain unknown to her, awkward silences had always made Izzie nervous. And when she got nervous, Izzie had the tendency to talk. A lot. Even more than usual, which was already well above the average words-per-second rate, or so she was told. There was something about a lack of sound shrouding her ears that filled her with the uncontrollable urge to eliminate it, albeit against her better judgment. Tonight was , unfortunately, no exception.

He enjoys the silence; he always has. His philosophy on life is a simple one, founded on very few basic principles (because like talking, he doesn't like to over think, either), one of which being 'don't talk more that necessary'. Because really, why would he need to? But it seems to him that Izzie has different plans, as she appears to feel the need to fill the silence between them at every available interval.

That wouldn't be so bad, he thinks, if it weren't for two problems. The first problem is that it's _Izzie_ trying to talk to him. He wants to talk to her, he really does, but it's easier to just not try. He's done a pretty good job of avoiding her for the majority of the night, and for the past few months actually. Because really? She makes him nervous. And when he's nervous, Alex likes silence even more than usual.

The second, of course, is that she's staring at him. Usually, he wouldn't mind that, because he's kind of used to having girls as hot as Izzie stare at him. But this time, he does mind, because now he feels obligated to _look_ at her when speaking, since she's doing the same, but he can't do that either. Because looking at her, really looking at her - the woman he's pretty sure he's been in love with since the first time he made that unfortunate mistake - would just remind him of what he couldn't have.

Talking to or even looking at Izzie never has a good outcome, at least not anymore. He's decided it's easier this way, to just cut her out of his life, because his feelings for her are never going to diminish, he knows that now. So he keeps his eye glued to his patient's chart, and waits.

She sits chewing her lip and attempts to stare intently at her own patient chart, but it's hopeless, because he's sitting _right there_ beside her and who knows when she'll get this chance again? Her willpower looses out to the anxious feeling the silence fills her with, and her longing to even just _hear_ his voice, and she feels that oh-so-familiar bubbling of nerves just behind her lips.

"So, how have you been?"

He uses every iota of willpower in his body to _not_ look at her. "Fine. You?"

"Oh me? I've been great. I've been good. I've just been… really good. Yep…" She's rambling, of course she's rambling, and hopes it will somehow encourage some more words to part his tensed mouth.

He nods and continues to scribble the tip of his pen lazily against the chart. "That's good."

"It is… it really is."

Then silence again, only ever disturbed by the occasional sounds of pen scratching paper. She thinks it should _never_ be so quiet in a room that a person can _actually_ hear such minuet sounds, so she tries again.

"How are things in neonatal?"

He almost glances up at her, _almost_, before he catches himself. "Surprisingly, really good."

"Good… that's, that's really great. Do you think you might specialize in that? Or is it too soon to tell?" Why talking seems such a daunting task for him, she'll never know. Or maybe its just talking to _her_…

"I think I will be, yeah. You?"

"Oh well, yeah. I mean… yeah. I think I may… I also really like General, and Bailey would be great to have as a mentor. I also might do OB… but no, neonatal is in the lead."

"Good." He's answering her with as few words as possible; he only has to make it through this next half hour.

"Yeah…" She's tempted to pull the hair threading through her fingers straight out at this point, because he's proving so hard to talk to it's become more than awkward; it's just become sad.

"Alex," she finally says, after what _feels_ like forever, but is in actuality probably only about 45 seconds.

"Yes?"

It's her turn to remain silent as she waits for him to finally look up at her, which is hard because all she wants to do is just _tell_ him to do it.

He knows he finally has to at this point, so he tentatively lifts his eyes from the page in front of him, casting them just over her shoulder, still refusing to meet her gaze. He knows what will happen if he does and he refuses to let it, not this time. Because the last time he _looked_ at Izzie, he was kissing her in a stairwell, a kiss followed swiftly by rejection. And that can't happen; not again.

"Can we please just talk?"

He diverts his eyes back down to the chart immediately, grateful to rid himself of the temptation of meeting hers. "We are talking."

She sighs, mostly as an attempt to delay the impending word vomit she wishes she could hold back. "Look… I know things are a little… awkward between us. And I know it's kind of hard to talk, considering everything that's happened... But Alex, I just… want to know you again. I miss you being a part of my life. So please… can we just talk? Really talk? As… friends?"

He feels a pang of guilt shoot through him as he wonders if Izzie realizes exactly what he's been doing all night. Despite how badly he just wants to distance himself from her, to forget her, he can't. Not when she's sitting there, _looking_ at him and asking him to try. She's always been his weakness and he hates her for it, but not nearly as much as he hates her for no longer being his. "Okay Iz, we can talk," he agrees, defeated.

Her somber expression brightens, just for a second, and he realizes maybe the pain associated with talking to her is worth it. Because her smile is something he's missed seeing cross her face, even if it is no longer directed towards him. The fact that he _cares_ whether or not she's even happy just makes him hate her even more, because he's miserable as hell without her, and he's starting to think he always will be. Because he was perfectly happy before Izzie came along, before he knew what she felt like, and now he knows nothing can ever compare. And he hates it.

"Thank you."

Before she can stop herself (because really, when can she?), she's asking him the question she both does and does not want the answer to; the question that's been on her mind since she first heard the rumor two weeks ago. But they are _friends_ after all, and friends can talk about things like recently failed relationships, after all.

"So, what happened between you and Addison? I heard you two broke up."

He's a little stunned by the question, because he thought Addison really would be the last subject Izzie would ever want to talk about with him. Then he realizes the fact that she's comfortable asking him about the women he's been sleeping with really does mean she's done thinking about him, like that anyways. Which is kind of pathetic, considering the amount of time he spends thinking about her, and he brushes it off, ensuring none of the hurt visibly crosses his face.

But he answers her without missing a beat; if she wants to talk, he'll talk. Even though he hates her, he also loves her, which proves to be quite a difficult internal struggle. She's been going through hell lately, what with O'Malley moving out, and her… fiancé dying. He cringes a little at the thought of the man who, in his mind, was the barrier between him and happiness. But he realizes now that he, himself, is probably that barrier, and it was his own fault he lost her in the first place. But it proves so much easier to place the blame elsewhere.

"I wouldn't really call it 'breaking up'. More like 'ending things', I guess. Whatever was going on. We were never technically together."

She's even more curious now, but not as curious as she is ecstatic at the fact that he's confirmed he's single. "What do you mean?"

He hates the fact that he has to tell her, but he feels too guilty not too, since she confessed how 'she wants to know him' and he's been completely blowing her off all night. "It was a comfort thing. We were both kind of alone… and we worked together and it just, happened. She was still hung up on Sloane, and I'm--" he cuts himself off, thankful to be saved from blurting it out, right there in front of her, and he reaffirms in his mind why he should never talk to people when he's nervous.

'Well, I was there. Addison's messed up, and I thought I was doing the right thing, by being there. I thought I was making her feel less alone. But she loves Sloane, and he's just totally obsessed, so I ended it."

He stills the pen between his fingers after making one final note, pulling the silver flap of the chart closed. He turns, angling his body towards hers, carefully avoiding her eyes still. "I just, didn't want to be that guy." With another shrug of his shoulders, he stands, making his way to the haggard row of lockers just in front of them.

"What guy?" she asks curiously, eyeing him spin the combination she has remembered by heart into his lock, already predicting the directions his hands will move next. She'd seen those hands do the same so many times now, every morning and every night. The insertion of a familiar combination began and ended his shifts, and she, always watching, wondered whimsically how he had spent the hours in between, without her.

He pulls his lock finally open, pausing to glance over his shoulder in her direction (but still not quite _at _her). "The guy who keeps two people who are supposed to be together, from being together." He turns back to the locker, pulling back it's now-opened door to peer inside, knowing full well that his words had dripped with loathing and he had completely given himself away, adding it as yet another example as to why he should never talk more that absolutely necessary.

She stares at his back, his words drifting between her ears and bubbling her nerves to their breaking point. "Like Denny?" she blurts out, knowing the outburst to be a mistake as each syllable rolls so easily off her nervous tongue. It's too late now; she's past the point where she can control or even be held accountable for anything she says and she blames it on the way Alex has been so carefully avoiding her gaze the entire evening. It's finally driven her to this point, as she knew it eventually would.

Immediately, she sees his shoulders tense up and hears his breath hitch inside his chest. She anxiously studies his form, wondering if he can feel the intensity of her gaze searing through his back, and just how much more of it he can endure before he finally has to look at her. She doesn't need to see his face to know exactly what it looks like. Shock contorted by anger; a scowl ever-so-softened by pain.

He feels her eyes burn a hole through the back of his scrubs, heat pulsating from his spine and creeping its way across his chest, and he remains still, frozen in place by her words. He doesn't know what to do or say and he knows now that if he couldn't face her before, he certainly can't now. So he remains standing, at a loss for what else to do, and waits, searching his mind desperately for a way out.

But she won't let him get away this time, because this time she knows what she wants and what needs to happen; what should have happened a long time ago. This is the chance she's been waiting for and she can't stop her fumbling lips from continuing. "I miss you." He still doesn't move, at least momentarily. "I miss you," she repeats as a mere whisper.

He really can't believe what he's hearing, and for a second he doesn't. He convinces himself this is all a dream or hallucination or something else conjured by his own imagination, because it's all too surreal, the words directed towards him that he never thought he'd hear from Izzie Stevens. Then he hears her again, faintly, in the same voice she used to use to gently lull him awake in the mornings, and he _knows_ he actually heard her.

He whips around from his locker to look at her, really look at her, what he's been putting off all night and immediately he remembers why. Her eyes draw his like magnets and no matter how hard he wants to, he can't turn away, and this is what he was scared of. But now he's lost in the depths of her eyes, too far gone to ever find his way back out.

She blinks her eyes to the floor, because now it's she that can't handle the intensity that only looking at Alex comes with. But he's staring back at her and she can't read his thoughts at all and it's frightening, causing her nerves to once again bubble towards the surface of her lips and she opens her mouth to speak and knows immediately that there is no feasible way for her to possibly stop.

"I miss you," she starts, "I've missed you for awhile. No, no, I've never stopped missing you. Not since Denny, hell, no Alex! Not since Olivia. I don't stop, I never do."

She's up off the bench now, her mouth moving far too fast for her body to not at least _try_ to catch up with.

"And I think about you. God, I'm always thinking about you. I wish I could stop, I'd do anything, to just, STOP! To just, get you out of my head, to move on with my life!"

Her feet pace her across the floor, back and forth in front of him, as her outburst continues.

"Because I hate the fact that I think about you. And what I hate the most about it is that I love thinking about you, but I hate that. I hate that I love when I think about you… and I know that didn't make any sense, but I just, I-"

She stops her pacing to catch her breath. She's making an idiot out of herself; she knows that. But somehow, even while being consciously aware that she's a complete train wreck of a mess, her lips refuse to still.

He just stands there, in dumbfounded silence, watching her as a slow, unsure grin involuntarily begins to creep across his lips.

"Why is this so hard?" she begs of him, searching his eyes; but of course, he has no answer, so her pacing resumes.

"And tonight, you know, we're just sitting here, and it's hard. It's so hard. It's actually _painful_ for me to be around you, but it's even worse when I'm not. So it's pretty much lose-lose… But all I know is, I miss you. I miss being with you and driving to work with you and eating lunch with you and all the things we used to do together, that I now have do without you, and it's just more constant reminders of you forced upon me. And it drives me crazy! Because I miss you. I miss the sex. I miss the way I pretend to hate your derogatory comments… and I miss they way you used to look at me, really look at me, and you not looking at me all night? Made me miss it even more."

His lopsided smile has pulled into a full-force grin, and he watches her, still silent.

She pauses, her pacing stopped, and takes two steps towards him, meeting his eyes again. Because she's painfully aware that she's pouring her heart out and he's yet to say anything, but somehow, she doesn't regret it. "And if you don't want to be that guy, than refuse to be him, because I want to be with you… and we're two people that are supposed to be together."

She's done talking now, finally; she's said all she can. And still, silence on the other end. She stares at him, just standing there observing her, _silently_. She nervously fidgets, feeling the urge to say more, but still hoping he'll take over. The silence grows unbearable, and she blurts out, "Say something already!" throwing her hands up in the air in frustration.

He makes no attempt to somber his expression, and takes the final step needed to close the distance between them. He's still not really sure this _is_ happening until he's so close to her that he can feel her hitched breath warm against his skin and sees her eyes glaze over in anticipation as they peer into his own.

Alex Karev has always been a man of few words. He doesn't believe in talking when words aren't needed. In this case, he felt words were no longer necessary, because even in her incoherent rambling, Izzie managed to say every word he'd had inside his own mind. So he does the only thing that seems natural and appropriate in this moment: he reaches forward, delicately cupping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and angles her face towards him. Bending down, he touches his lips to her own, sliding his mouth across hers once or twice, and grins against her just at the anticipation of her response. When the initial shock wears off, he feels heat seep through him as her actions began to mimic his own, and he kisses her more heatedly, pulling lightly at the blonde tendril weaved between his finger tips.

Kissing him back, she feels every word he'd left unsaid the entire night rip through her body like a tidal wave. It comes through the tenderness of the lips pulsating against her own, from the fascination of the fingers threaded through her hair, the forceful arm wrapped tightly around her waist, and the desperate wanting of the warm tongue which he slips into her mouth. She groans, the initial enthrallment of actually being able to kiss Alex again after all this time now worn off, replaced by a forceful lust that causes her to reach up and cup his face in her hands.

His fingers slide down the length of her hair to the back of her neck as he tries to pull her even closer, his mouth desperate against hers. Five minutes ago, he'd resolved that he'd never even be anywhere near close enough to Izzie to even be doing this at all, and now she's here. She's his, again, and at the thought of it he can't help but kiss her even harder.

He slowly breaks away from her, not really because he wants to, but because he can't tell if it's Izzie who is making his head spin or if it's the lack of oxygen being received by his body due to the intensity of the kiss. He assumes it's the former, but still rests his forehead against hers, as both of their breaths come in harsh, heated gasps.

He stares back into her eyes, still quite surprised he's able to do that now, and waits for her to say something. He may not have used actual words, but he'd used his mouth to say all he's capable of.

But Izzie proves she _has_ learned something tonight as she makes no attempt to fill the silence. She simply pulls Alex's face back to hers, pressing her lips against his without letting a word escape them. Maybe sometimes, she thinks, words just aren't necessary.


End file.
